‘I regret not celebrating with Cross’
AARON Kernan believes moving the All-Ireland finals back a month was a step forward but insists the GAA must be ‘extremely radical’ if the fixtures crisis at club level is to be solved.
The former Armagh star, and prominent member of the Club Players Association, feels that the Association must be bold and progressive and schedule the All Ireland finals for the start of August.
‘Ultimately, if you want to fix the calendar, that is what you are going to have to do,’ said the Crossmaglen All-Ireland Club SFC winner. ‘It’s going to be extremely radical and it is going to need a big man to step in and pull it back another three weeks, having already been pulled back by three weeks.
‘But if we are talking about a progressive organisation that is looking after its players, it’s going to have to happen. And I think our organisation will grow because the clubs will grow as well as the inter-county game.’
Kernan doesn’t accept that if the inter-county season was tightened further, it would provide a bigger platform for other sports.
‘In fairness, moving the finals back to the end of August was extremely radical. You saw the uproar when they moved them out of September, with people saying that’s “a GAA month”. But I don’t agree with that in the slightest, because if you pick up a Monday newspaper from September onwards when there is no inter-county, every week, it is county finals and then provincial finals.
‘The provincial club championships are massive and covered nationally. The GAA just doesn’t disappear after the All-Ireland final. If this is worked properly, I think the club would become even bigger. We have the club All-Stars now and it is just going to get even bigger.’
Within his own club in Crossmaglen, there is resistance to the calendar year proposal with some, including his former team-mate John McEntee, believing that St Patrick’s Day offers a stage for the club finals. However, Kernan insists the club finals should be played over a weekend in December.
In his opinion, the senior, intermediate and junior All-Ireland football finals should be played on a Saturday with the three hurling deciders taking place on a Sunday.
‘If we are given a set calendar within the year and you know that is finishing with six All-Irelands over a weekend in Croke Park, you tell me what other sport in Ireland will take over 60,000 over a weekend to a stadium as those finals would do? If Munster played Leinster, they would only get 30 to 40,000 at the Aviva.
‘If you go back to last weekend. Cuala were playing the first round of the Dublin championship two weeks after they have become AllIreland champions. Where’s the buzz for those boys? [They] celebrate for a week and then back to championship.
‘If I look back now, I never really got the chance to enjoy my AllIreland wins with Cross and that really disappoints me. I should have just went away but I always felt that I owed it to Armagh to go straight back in with them a week later.
‘If everything was structured and everything was due to come to a finish at the end of November or start of December, there would be no over-lapping of seasons and everyone would have a month off in December. It would be radical but it would be fair on everyone. Would Derry have been relegated to Division 4 if they had the Slaughtneil players for the whole of the [Allianz] League, I don’t think they would be.’